In a book on foreign policy written by a college professor no less I read the following:
The Taliban. . . prohibited music, kite flying, dog races, and education for women.
Yes, Jack had sunglasses, a backpack, a dog, and thyroid cancer. He enjoyed killing time and elderly grandmas.
Clarissa's Blog 
Do you favor or disfavor Oxford commas?
Yes, Jack had sunglasses, a backpack, a dog, and thyroid cancer. He enjoyed killing time and elderly grandmas.
Is this… a personals ad from a Dean Koontz novel? Knowing young grandmas are safe is an important detail.
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Love Oxford commas with a strange passion.
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Here’s a legitimate language question for you English language lovers (about pronunciation, not grammar).
Do you pronounce these words as homonyms, as do you say them differently:
pin, pen
tin, ten
bin, been
din, den
thin, then
How do they sound in your accent, Clarissa?
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I do pronounce them differently and it never occurred to me that not everybody might. Hmmm.
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I pronounce “bin” and “been” nearly identically. But that pair is the exception. All the other pairs, I personally pronounce quite differently. 🙂
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What’s really difficult to pronounce are things like the “t”s in the word “butter.” I know they are supposed to sound closer to an “r” but that’s hard!
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“I know they are supposed to sound closer to an “r” but that’s hard!”
I would say it should sound more like a “d.” Think “budder.”
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I think she means closer to a Russian (or Spanish) r . Technically the American sound of t and d between vowels is very close to the Spanish r. I heard a story about an American trying to say todos (all [of them]) in Latin America and people there hearing ‘toros’ (bulls).
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Same here, Evelina.
On accent quizzes, it tells me I speak like broadcast news.
Have you gone through accent.gmu.edu? If you want to hear all the different English accents you could think of, that’s the place.
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“Same here, Evelina. On accent quizzes, it tells me I speak like broadcast news.”
I have similar results from accent quizzes. Foreign exchange students from Asia (or the students who struggle) sometimes angle to take classes with me because I apparently “speak like a language tape.” I like that I speak clearly but fear that means I’m boring. 😉
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The person with the best enunciation ever is James Spader. I watch his TV shows just to hear how beautifully he speaks. I’d kill to be able to speak this way.
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I get “least common denominator” (for GAE – General American English). If a distinction is lost anywhere in the US then it’s lost in my spontaneous speech – though it might make a comeback in more formal contexts.
So I merge pen-pin, Don-Dawn, Mary-merry-marry, latter-ladder, winter-winner etc The one exception is that I do still distinguish witch-which (and win and when – where I maintain the h even though the vowels are merged).
I looked at accent.gmu.edu but got bored quickly as it has way too much hyper-correct reading pronunciations (as opposed to the much more interesting phenomena of connected speech).
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In my ordinary pronunciation each pair sounds the same. I can distinguish them if I nned to but it doesn’t come naturally. I also pronounce Don and Dawn the same (and cannot really pronounce them differently).
I remember an elementary school teacher railing at a bunch of 8 year olds because we said pen and pin the same.
“Can’t you hear the difference between pin and pin, there’s pin and then there’s pin. Pin and pin, they’re different!” (that’s what we heard).
It was many years before I understood what she was ranting about.
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Sort of off-topic, but I’m curious about your pronunciation of Russian (and on general Ukrainian vs Russian norms).
Do you pronounce the first vowel of вода as о or а?
How do you pronounce щ ? As шч or as шш (but soft)?
How do you pronounce the consonant in endings like -его? like г or в ?
Does я become е or и when it’s unstressed?
Did your family use surzhyk much or did you stick to Ukrainian-Standard Russian?
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We spoke Russian and English at home but I’m sure my mother could do a convincing surzhyk if she wanted to.
I had a noticeable Ukrainian accent in my Russian when I met N. For instance, my “g” was always pronounced as “h”. I’d also say “sho” instead of “shto.” But because of N I now use a much more classic Russian pronunciation. My vocabulary, though, has many Ukrainianisms and regional words from my city that constantly have to be translated for N.
Pronouncing the unstressed “o” as “a” is standard I’m Russian up until the Ural Mountains. From there, a different accent appears, people stick soft “r” where it doesn’t belong, use strange verb endings, etc.
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